A number of different approaches are known for supplying components for automated assembly into multi-component items by automated assembly machinery. Typically, this involves sequential supply of a plurality of identical components each in a predetermined orientation to assembly machinery in a rapid and reliable manner.
One approach is to use a vibratory bowl feeder. Such a feeder includes a series of guides designed having regard to the components to be supplied thereby, which act to guide and constrain the components into the desired orientation while rejecting components not in the correct orientation, to produce an output consisting of a stream of properly oriented components. Such feeders when properly adjusted can work well, depending on the complexity of the components, but have the drawbacks of being noisy in operation, having a restricted maximum output, and also of the possibility of occasionally supplying a uncorrectly oriented component.
Centrifugal bowl feeders can supply components more quickly than vibratory bowl feeders but are only capable of handling relatively simple components, usually those with a high degree of symmetry that require orienting in one sense only (eg up/down but not also front/back). Centrifugal bowl feeders are also noisy.
A stack of correctly oriented components may be supplied from a hopper. This approach requires the preliminary step of producing the stack of components in the correct orientation.
The present invention concerns a novel approach to the supply of components for automated assembly.